Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269 – 283

www.elsevier.com/locate/tecto

3-D velocity structure of the 2003 Bam earthquake area (SE Iran):
Existence of a low-Poisson's ratio layer and its
relation to heavy damage
Hossein Sadeghi a,⁎, S.M. Fatemi Aghda b,1 , Sadaomi Suzuki c,2 , Takeshi Nakamura d,3
a
Earthquake Research Center, also at Department of Geology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad 91775-1436, Iran
b
Department of Geology, Tarbiat Moallem University, Tehran 15614, also at Natural Disaster Research Institute, Tehran 19395-4676, Iran
c
Tono Research Institute of Earthquake Science, Mizunami 509-6132, Japan
d
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan
Received 1 July 2005; received in revised form 2 January 2006; accepted 31 January 2006
Available online 15 March 2006

Abstract

To understand the generation mechanism of the Bam earthquake (Mw 6.6), we studied three-dimensional VP, VS and Poisson's
ratio (σ) structures in the Bam area by using the seismic tomography method. We inverted accurate arrival times of 19490 P waves
and 19015 S waves from 2396 aftershocks recorded by a temporal high-sensitivity seismic network. The 3-D velocity structure of
the seismogenic region was well resolved to a depth of 14 km with significant velocity variations of up to 5%. The general pattern
of aftershock distribution was relocated by using the 3-D structure to delineate a source fault for a length of approximately 20 km
along a line 4.5km west of the known geological Bam fault; this source fault dips steeply westward and strikes a nearly north–
south line. The main shallow cluster of aftershocks south of the city of Bam is distributed just under the minor surface ruptures in
the desert. The 3-D velocity structure shows a thick layer of high VS and low σ (minimum: 0.20) at a depth range of 2–6 km. The
deeper layer, with a thickness of about 2 km, appears to have a low VS and high σ (maximum: 0.28) from 6 km depth beneath Bam
to a depth of 9 km south of the city. The inferred increase of Poisson's ratio from 2 to 10 km in depth may be associated with a
change from rigid and SiO2-rich rock to more mafic rock, including the probable existence of fluids. The main seismic gap of
aftershock distribution at the depth range of 2 to 7km coincides well with the large slip zone in the shallow thick layer of high VS
and low σ. The large slip propagating mainly in the shallow rigid layer may be one of the main reasons why the Bam area suffered
heavy damage.
© 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Bam earthquake; Aftershocks; Seismic velocity structure; Poisson's ratio; Shallow rigid layer; Arg-e-Bam fault

1. Introduction
⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +98 511 842 1234.
E-mail addresses: sadeghi@seismo.um.ac.ir (H. Sadeghi), On December 26, 2003, a powerful earthquake in
fatemi@saba.tmu.ac.ir (S.M.F. Aghda), suzuki@tries.jp (S. Suzuki),
southeastern Iran caused catastrophic damage to the
nakamura@geo.kyushu-u.ac.jp (T. Nakamura).
1
Fax: +98 21 200 9453. ancient city of Bam, located on the Silk Road, and
2
Fax: +81 572 67 3108. neighboring villages with a collective population of
3
Fax: +81 92 642 2684. about 142,000. In terms of loss of life and casualties, this
0040-1951/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tecto.2006.01.005
270 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283
earthquake was the worst to occur in that year anywhere
in the world. The death toll was 26,371 people, nearly
19% of the population (Statistic Center of Iran, 2004)
and tens of thousands were injured. An important
cultural loss was the almost total destruction of the well-
known historic citadel Arg-e-Bam. This monument,
declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, is the
biggest mud-brick structural complex in the world. Arg-
e-Bam is thought to be over 2000 years old. Since the
structure was well intact before the 2003 Bam
earthquake, this earthquake is believed to be the largest
to occur in this area in more than 2000 years.
Aside from the destruction of Arg-e-Bam, the main
reason for such massive damage to Bam may be the poor
construction of the unreinforced mud-brick houses.
Even so, the damage was disproportionately and
unexpectedly large given the magnitude of the earth-
quake. Maximum acceleration of 0.98g was recorded in
the vertical component at the Bam accelerograph station
in the center of Bam city by the Building and Housing
Research Center of Iran (BHRC; http://www.bhrc.gov.
ir/). The earthquake information initially provided by
the US Geological Survey, USGS (http://earthquake.
usgs.gov/), was as follows: origin time 26/12/2003 at
01:56:52 (UTC) and 05:26:52 (local time); epicenter
29.004N, 58.337E; depth 10 km, and moment magni-
tude 6.6. Suzuki et al. (2004) estimated the start point of
the large slip in the source fault by using the aftershock
distribution and the S–P time recorded by the Bam
accelerograph station. Teleseismic focal mechanisms
from several groups (e.g., USGS; Yamanaka, 2003)
indicated a steeply dipping, right lateral strike-slip
movement on a fault with a N–S trend. This agrees well
with the known tectonic pattern of the region (e.g.,
Walker and Jackson, 2002). The Bam fault, which has
long been recognized (e.g., Berberian, 1976; Hessami et
al., 2003) for its distinctive flexure scarp, extends along
the west side of the village of Baravat about 5km
southeast of Bam city. Just after the earthquake, it was
assumed that the main shock had occurred in the
geological Bam fault (e.g., Ahmadizadeh and Shakib,
2004). However, nobody could find any clear evidence
of dislocation on this existing Quaternary fault.
Comparing the Bam earthquake and the 2000 Tottori
earthquake in southwest Japan, Miyake et al. (2004)
proposed that the main shock ruptured a shallow
asperity on a fresh fault rather than on the Bam fault.
Waveform inversions using teleseismic data (e.g.,
Yamanaka, 2003; Yagi, 2003) have suggested the
existence of a shallow asperity, i.e., a large slip area,
for the Bam earthquake. Analyzing Envisat SAR
interferometry data before and after the earthquake,
Talebian et al. (2004), Binet and Bollinger (2005), and
Fielding et al. (2005) indicated that the main rupture
reached the surface some 5 km west of the Bam fault.
Wang et al. (2004) used differential radar interferometry
(D-inSAR) to determine the source parameters. They
suggested that the Bam earthquake ruptured a hidden or
new fault of about 24 km from (29.178N, 58.382E) to
(28.971N, 58.357E) that had an unusually strong
asperity.
The main shock was followed by a series of
aftershock events (e.g., Nakamura et al., 2005; Tatar et
al., 2005). Nakamura et al. (2005) recorded several
thousand aftershocks during the period February 6 to
March 7, 2003. They located accurate hypocenters of
2789 aftershocks by the use of a 1-D velocity model.
The main distribution of aftershocks did not correspond
to the geological Bam fault. The epicenter distribution is
linearly more than 20km in parallel with a line about
3.5 km west of the Bam fault. The hypocenter
distribution shows a nearly vertical trend or a slight
tendency to lie farther west with its depth increasing
from 0 to 16 km. They proposed the name “Arg-e-Bam
fault” as the source fault to distinguish it from the Bam
fault.
Since the early 1980s, local earthquake tomography
has been successfully used to image lateral heterogene-
ities of the crust in seismogenic fault zones (see
Eberhart-Phillips, 1993 and references therein). Material
properties in the earthquake source area would certainly
have influenced the initiation, propagation and termi-
nation of the earthquake rupture. The velocity variations
in the upper crust allow us to define the structure and
geometry of faults at depth and to identify the structures
of seismogenic zones, especially in cases of hidden and
buried faults (e.g., Eberhart-Phillips, 1990; Chiarabba
and Selvaggi, 1997; Chiarabba et al., 1997, Zhao et al.,
2004). In the present study we have applied seismic
tomography to arrival time data of the Bam earthquake
aftershocks recorded by a temporal high-sensitivity
seismic network (Suzuki et al., 2004; Nakamura et al.,
2005). Arrival times of high-quality P waves and S
waves were collected. These data allowed us to
determine detailed three-dimensional (3-D) VP and VS
structures in the source area of the Bam earthquake. We
used the data to try to deduce variations in the physical
properties of rocks. Because rocks with differing
physical states can have similar seismic velocities,
seismic velocity alone is not a sensitive indicator of
variable rock properties. For this reason, it is often
useful to consider the ratios and products of seismic
parameters to differentiate 3-D variations in the
subsurface (Salah and Zhao, 2003). Poisson's ratio (or
 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283 271

VP / VS) is a key parameter in studying petrologic
properties of crustal rocks (Christensen, 1996) and can
provide tighter constraints on the crustal composition
than can VP and VS alone. Poisson's ratio has proved to
be very effective for clarification of the seismogenic
behavior of crust, especially the roles of crustal fluids in
the nucleation and growth of earthquake rupture (Zhao
et al., 1996, 2002, 2004).
2. Tectonic setting
The tectonics of the region (Fig. 1) is dominated by
the convergence between the Arabian and Eurasian
plates. The convergence is trending N to NNE at
velocity ranges from 23–25 mm/yr as deduced from
GPS measurements (e.g., McClusky et al., 2003;
Vernant et al., 2004) to 35 mm/yr according to the
NUVEL-1 model (DeMets et al., 1990). To the west, the
northwest-trending Zagros fold and thrust belt, which is
an active continental collision zone, accommodates
about 10 mm/yr of NNE-trending shortening (Alavi,
1994; Talebian and Jackson, 2002; Tatar et al., 2002;
Blanc et al., 2003); also, in several areas further north,
the crust is forced to accommodate the convergence by
shortening (Vernant et al., 2004). To the east, this
relative motion is accommodated by the east-trending
Makran belt. The Makran belt is the emerged portion of
an accretionary prism resulting from the subduction of
the Oman Gulf oceanic lithosphere (which forms part of
the Arabian plate) beneath the Iranian plate (Byrne et al.,
1992; McCall, 1997; Kopp et al., 2000). Earthquakes
have occurred mainly within the Zagros as a wide
seismic belt (see USGS National Earthquake Informa-
tion Center catalog, available at http://neic.usgs.gov/
neis/epic/epic.html). The high seismicity in Zagros
might be due to the presence of thick layers of late
Precambrian to early Cambrian salt deposits allowing
deformation to be distributed over a wide area (Koyi et
al., 2000). To the SE of Zagros, the Gowk fault separates
the Zagros collision zone from the Lut block with
relatively low levels of seismic activity (Berberian et al.,
2000). Before the Bam earthquake, the Gowk fault was
considered the only seismically active fault in the study
area (Ambraseys and Melville, 1982; Walker and
Jackson, 2002). Five earthquakes of Mw = 5.4–7.1
have occurred on this fault since 1981 (Berberian et
al., 2001; Walker and Jackson, 2002), but all have been
more than 100 km from Bam. The Gowk fault to the
south, adjacent to the Bam fault, dies out in the Jebal
Barez Mountains, which themselves merge with the
active volcanic arc north of the Makran subduction zone
(Walker and Jackson, 2002). The focal mechanisms of

Fig. 1. Simplified tectonic map around the study area. The arrows show Arabian plate motion relative to Eurasia. Convergence velocities are indicated
after the NUVEL-1 model (DeMets et al., 1990) and GPS studies (Tatar et al., 2002; Vernant et al., 2004). The strike-slip motion on the Gowk fault
comes from the tectonic work (Walker and Jackson, 2002). Three active volcanoes—Bazman, Taftan and Soltan—are associated with the Makran
subduction zone (Jakob and Quittmeyer, 1979). The location of the 2003 Bam earthquake and its focal mechanism (Yamanaka, 2003) are also shown.
272 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283

the Gowk fault earthquakes (Berberian et al., 2001)
suggest that transpressional deformation is active within
the study area. The Gowk and Bam faults are both of the
right-lateral strike-slip-type, transmitting the convergent
movement accommodated north of the Iranian plateau to
the Makran and accommodating the difference in
motion due to the transition between the Zagros
collision and Makran subduction by transpressional
tectonics (see Regard et al., 2005 and references
therein).
3. Data and method
The aftershock activity of the 2003 Bam earthquake
was monitored by a seismic network consisting of nine
temporal stations (Fig. 2). Each station was equipped
with a highly sensitive three-component velocity-type
seismometer (LE-3D, Lennartz Electronics) with a
natural frequency of 1Hz, and a GPS timing system
(Suzuki et al., 2004). The waveform data were
continuously recorded at a sampling rate of 100Hz by

Fig. 2. (A) Hypocenter distribution (red dots) of the aftershocks located by 1-D velocity model (after Nakamura et al., 2005). (B) Hypocenter
distribution (red dots) relocated by using our 3-D velocity model. The lines AB, CD and EF correspond to the profiles of vertical cross-sections in Fig.
9. A NASA satellite map (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/) is shown. The green triangles denote stations of the temporal seismic network. Station 5
in Arg-e-Bam is also marked by a circle. The black dashed line indicates the traced line of the Bam fault inferred from the geological map supplied by
the National Geoscience Database of Iran (http://www.ngdir.ir/). Projections of the aftershock distributions on north–south (a) and east–west (c)
profiles are also shown.
 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283 273

computed 20 runs with different thicknesses of divided

layers in the initial model and finally obtained one of the
optimal 1-D models, as shown in Table 1, by linear
averaging the inverted velocity values of the adjacent
layers over 5km thicknesses. The selection of 5km
thickness in Table 1 is suitable for our 3-D model
parameterization, in which we adopted a grid spacing of
3–5km. We also tried an additional inversion with 5km
thick layers only by using P and S arrival times with rms
residuals of less than 0.1s of 308 aftershocks recorded
by all nine stations. The results showed that the
difference in velocity between the additional inversion
and Table 1 is less than 4%. We conclusively infer that
the 1-D model in Table 1 is appropriate for the initial
model in our 3-D tomography procedure. Using the
Wadati method (1933), we calculated a mean VP / VS
value through a polynomial regression on the differ-
Fig. 3. Wadati diagram for the aftershocks recorded by station 5 in Arg-
ences between S- and P-wave arrivals at station 5
e-Bam. Difference between P- and S-wave arrivals used for the
computation of VP / VS through a polynomial regression (gray line). (marked with a circle on Fig. 2-b). The seismograph at
station 5 was installed on an outcrop of volcanic hard
rock inside the Arg-e-Bam above the source fault.
a 16-bit data-logger (LS-8000SH, Hakusan). In general, Accurate S-wave arrival times were identified on the
the arrival time of the P phase could be identified to horizontal component of this station. Fig. 4 shows two
within about 0.05 s (sampling rate 100 Hz), whereas the examples of three-component seismograms: a very
estimation of the S-phase arrival was slightly less shallow aftershock and a relatively deep aftershock.
accurate. Using a one-dimensional (1-D) velocity model The polynomial regression performed in Fig. 3 gives
(Fig. 2A), we selected a useful data set of 2396
VP
aftershocks among the 2789 aftershocks that Nakamura ¼ 1:737−0:0489DTp
et al. (2005) accurately located by the double difference VS
method (Waldhauser and Ellsworth, 2000). All 2396 where ΔTp is a proxy for depth. The values VP / VS of
events were recorded by at least seven stations and by the 1-D model in Table 1 are consistent with this
the root mean square (rms) residual of P- and S-arrival polynomial regression. The station corrections of this 1-
times < 0.3s. The magnitudes of the aftershocks ranged D model are shown in Table 2 and Fig. 5. They vary
from M 0.1 to 3.1. from − 0.169 to 0.179 s for P waves and − 0.051 to
First, we constructed an initial model of 1-D velocity 0.488 s for S waves, correlating generally with the
structure for the 3-D tomographic inversion, as follows. surface geology. High positive values of more than
The initial parameters of the hypocenters were deter- 0.045 s for P waves and 0.243 s for S waves are related to
mined by HYPOMH software (Hirata and Matsu'ura, the stations of the southern side on Quaternary
1987) by use of the IASPEI standard velocity model. sediments, while low values of less than − 0.118 s for
After that we started searching for the best 1-D velocity P waves and 0.058 s for S waves are related to the
model by using the inversion program of Sato (1979). In northern stations on rocky sites.
each run, the program prescribes the 1-D model with the
minimum rms of residuals by working simultaneously
with 10 random initial models and an a priori model. Table 1
The initial models were constructed by using the Initial 1-D model of the velocity structure in Bam area used for 3-D
Gaussian random numbers around the a priori model travel time inversion
as the mean with a standard deviation. For the a priori Depth to bottom of VP Variance VS Variance VP/VS
model, we used the IASPEI1991 table because of the layer (km) (km/s) (km/s) (km/s) (km/s)
absence of reliable seismological information around 5 5.577 0.011 3.217 0.017 1.733
the Bam area. The standard deviations were within 10 5.830 0.030 3.464 0.018 1.683
0.25 km/s for P waves and 0.15km/s for S waves, 15 5.929 0.068 3.512 0.024 1.688
20 6.032 0.046 3.509 0.018 1.719
defined by plotting a Wadati diagram (Fig. 3). We
274 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283

Fig. 4. Examples of three-component seismograms of a shallow aftershock (A) and a relatively deep aftershock (B) recorded at station 5 in Arg-e-Bam.

Secondly, we researched the 3-D velocity structures
of P and S waves by using the tomography method
developed by Zhao et al. (1992). We adopted the
pseudo-bending method (Um and Thurber, 1987) for ray
tracing and a conjugate gradient algorithm (Paige and
Saunders, 1982) to invert the large and sparse system of
observation equations that relate observed travel times
to unknown parameters. A 3-D grid net was set up in the
model space of the study area to express velocity
structure. A total of 38505 phase data, consisting of
19490 P- and 19015 S-wave arrival times, were used in
this study. The unknown parameters are the hypocenters
of aftershocks and velocities at the grid nodes, both of
which are determined in an iterative inversion process.
The velocity at any point in the model is calculated by
linearly interpolating the velocities at the eight grid
nodes surrounding that point. As the dominant frequen-
cy is 8–10Hz for P waves and 5–8 Hz for S waves, the
corresponding Fresnel zones do not exceed 0.8km. This
is much smaller than the grid spacing of about 3–5km

Table 2
The data of seismic stations including station corrections obtained from 1-D travel time inversion
Station Longitude (°E) Latitude (°N) Elevation (m) Surface geology P-wave corr. (s) S-wave corr. (s)
1 58.2771 29.1929 1280 Well-bedded ash-flow tuffs with subordinate −0.149 − 0.051
2 58.2893 29.0615 1202 Quaternary sediments 0.121 0.386
3 58.2864 28.9592 1235 Quaternary sediments 0.128 0.410
4 58.3969 29.1607 1080 Well-bedded ash-flow tuffs with subordinate −0.155 0.015
5 58.3690 29.1160 1071 Volcanic rock (andesite) −0.162 0.058
6 58.3949 29.0084 1015 Quaternary sediments 0.045 0.279
7 58.4614 29.0607 952 Quaternary sediments 0.109 0.243
8 58.4731 29.1261 1006 Well-bedded ash-flow tuffs with subordinate −0.118 − 0.011
9 58.4556 28.9466 905 Quaternary sediments 0.179 0.488
 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283 275

Fig. 5. Simplified geological map of the Bam earthquake area based on the 1 : 100,000 geological map prepared by the Geological Survey of Iran,
Sheet 7648-Bam (1993). The grey triangles denote stations of the temporal seismic network. Crosses and circles on the stations show the positive and
negative station delays for the 1-D P-wave velocity model, respectively. The Bam seismic (accelerograph) station is marked by a grey diamond.

adopted in this study, and hence would not affect the study area. As the resolution naturally depends on the
tomographic imaging. After the VP and VS images are ray coverage, the denser regions are expected to have
determined from travel time inversion, we obtain the higher resolution. We chose grid nodes where more than
Poisson's ratio (σ) distribution by using the following 100 rays of P waves and more than 100 rays of S waves
relation.
 2
VP
2−
VS
r¼  2 :
VP
2−2
VS

4. Tomography results and resolution

Before describing the results of the 3-D tomographic

inversion, we first show the results of the checkerboard
resolution test (CRT). This test was conducted to assess
the ability of the data and the method to recover existing
velocity anomalies within the model. To make a
checkerboard, we assigned positive and negative
velocity perturbations with a 5% anomaly alternately
to all the 3-D grid nodes. We set up a 3-D grid in the
study area of 58.25E–58.50E and 28.9N–29.2N with a
grid spacing of 0.05° (about 5 km) in the horizontal
direction. Five layers of grid nodes are set up, one at
each of five depths: 0, 3, 6, 9 and 14km. Fig. 6 shows
the grid net distribution adopted in this inversion. We
obtained the results of the CRT at these five represen-
Fig. 6. Map view and cross-sectional view of the grid net adopted in
tative layers for both VP and VS structures, as shown in the 3-D inversion. Grid spacing in the horizontal direction is 0.05°
Fig. 7. The resolution test is generally good for the (∼5km). Five layers of grid nodes are set up at 0, 3, 6, 9 and 14km
layers, and synthetic anomalies are well recovered in the depths.
276 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283

Fig. 7. Results of checkerboard resolution tests (CRT) for P-wave and S-wave velocity structures. The depth of each layer is shown at the bottom of
each map. Open and solid circles denote low and high velocities, respectively.

passed through. The average hit counts were 3222 and 5% anomalies were well reconstructed. We were
3140 for P and S rays, respectively. The starting velocity therefore able to use VP / VS = 1.73 to verify that the
model was the inverted 1-D model (Table 1) for the result is not affected by the grid configuration. After
P-wave velocity structure. The CRT showed that getting the results of CRT, we solved 2369 × 4
 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283 277

hypocenter parameters and 120 velocity parameters of
VP and VS at the grid nodes. Conclusively, the rms of
arrival time residuals was reduced by 17% and 12% for
P waves and S waves, respectively. The final rms is
0.042 s for the P-wave data and 0.065 s for the S-wave
data, indicating the high quality of the arrival time data.
Ray coverage and residual reduction can give a sense of
the reliability of the inversion results. However, it
should be noted that there are apparent limitations of
seismic tomography (Zhao and Kayal, 2000). The main
practical limitation of seismic tomography is the lack of
any robust estimates of reliability in the resulting 3-D
models. We have also conducted an inversion by
adopting the inverted 1-D model in Table 1 for starting
the S-wave structure. The inversion results show that the
overall pattern of velocity structure is stable and that the
change in velocity anomalies is generally less than 1.0%
between VP / VS = 1.73 and Table 1 for the starting S-
wave structure. The velocity perturbations in Figs. 8 and
9 are expressed in values relative to the 1-D inverted P-
wave structure and VP / VS = 1.73.
Fig. 8 shows a map view of VP and VS and Poisson's
ratio distributions at each depth layer. Significant
variations of up to 5% for VP and VS are revealed in
the Bam area. The areas with the greater amplitude of
the velocity anomalies are generally distributed in the
first two layers, which are at depths of 0 and 3 km. At
these depths, the velocity patterns of P and S waves are
quite different from each other, thereby causing a high
amplitude of Poisson's ratio anomalies. At a depth of
0 km, high VP anomalies are located in the central part,
including the city of Bam and the village of Baravat, and
to the northeast of the study area. The S wave exhibits
low-velocity anomalies except beneath of Baravat. The
main feature of the layer at 0km depth is a high σ. At a
depth of 3 km, low VP anomalies are seen in the main
center of the area, while high VS anomalies are pro-
minent in the area surrounding this center. At this depth,
the Poisson's ratio pattern of the layer is quite different
from that of the layer at 0 km, and low σ anomalies are
distributed widely. In the map of the 6-km-deep layer, a
maximum 2% anomaly of high VP beneath Bam is

Fig. 8. Plane views of perturbations of P velocity (top), S velocity (middle), and Poisson's ratio (bottom) in the study area. The depth of each layer is
shown at the bottom. Slow velocity and high Poisson's ratio are shown by red; fast velocity and low Poisson's ratio are shown by blue. The
perturbation scales are shown on the right side.
278 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283

Fig. 9. Vertical cross-sections of P-wave and S-wave velocity perturbations and Poisson's ratio along the lines AB, CD and EF shown in Fig. 2B-b.
Slow velocity and high Poisson's ratio are shown by red; fast velocity and low Poisson's ratio are shown by blue. Small black crosses denote the
relocated aftershocks within a 2km width along the profile.

surrounded by low VP anomalies. The VS map shows a
maximum 5% of high velocity anomaly in the southeast
part of the study area and a strongly low velocity
anomaly in the northwest part. The Poisson's ratio map
shows a high σ anomaly beneath Bam and a low σ
anomaly in the southeast. At a depth of 9 km, the
significant linear trends of low VS and high σ appear in a
north–south direction and along the Arg-e-Bam fault,
which Nakamura et al. (2005) proposed as the source
fault of the Bam earthquake. The maps of VP, VS and
Poisson's ratio at a depth of 14 km reveal no special
anomalies exceeding 1%. By using our 3-D velocity
results, we relocated aftershocks and showed their
hypocenter distribution in Fig. 2B in comparison with
the one located by the 1-D velocity model (Fig. 2A,
Nakamura et al. (2005)). The average location errors of
the 3-D velocity results are estimated to be 0.10, 0.11
and 0.25 km for N–S, E–W and depth, respectively. The
comparison of hypocenter distributions between Fig. 2A
and B is discussed in the next section.
5. Discussion
We first discuss the 3-D images in the vertical cross-
sections of VP, VS and σ along and perpendicular to the
Bam aftershock alignment (Fig. 9). The north–south
cross-section AB shows a general shape including the
earthquake fault plane. The east–west cross-sections CD
and EF are perpendicular to the fault plane at 29.10N
through Bam and at 29.05N south of the city,
respectively. Those images present large variations in
seismic velocity and Poisson's ratio. The cross-section
CD along 29.10N in Fig. 9 shows a surface layer of high
σ (0.28–0.30) down to a depth of about 1 km. This may
 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283
indicate a sediment layer of poorly consolidated
materials with a lot of water in the northern area of
Bam, which is an oasis city. It is plausible that a well-
developed flood plain associated with the Posht-rud
River (Fig. 5) made such water-rich sediment. On the
other hand, there is no such surface layer of high
Poisson's ratio in the southern area of Bam along
29.05N, as shown in the cross-section EF. We avoid
discussing the cause of low VS and high σ in the shallow
layer south of 29.0N, because of the poor resolution by
CRT in Fig. 7. The most prominent anomaly is a thick
layer of low σ (0.20–0.24) at the depth range of about
2–6km, as is especially apparent in the cross-section EF.
A teleseismic analysis (Yamanaka, 2003) indicated that
a large slip existed in a shallow part of the fault plane.
Using radar data, Wang et al. (2004) suggested that the
maximum slip occurred at a depth of about 3 km. And
Fialko et al. (2005) indicated that most of the seismic
moment was released at a depth of 4–5 km. Those depth
ranges correspond to approximately the central depth of
this layer with low VP (5.35–5.77 km/s), high VS (3.25–
3.40 km/s) and low σ (0.20–0.24). The obtained VP
corresponds to the experimental value of 5.533 km/s for
andesite under 200 MPa in Table 2 of Christensen
(1996). But the obtained VS is slightly higher than the
experimental value of 3.034 km/s for the same andesite
under 200 MPa. Referring to the experimental study of
Christensen (1996), we would suggest that the observed
lower σ indicates rock with higher SiO2 content and
greater brittleness. If the outcrops of andesite, trachyan-
desite and dacite in the Bam area (Fig. 5) contain much
quartz, this high quartz content could explain the
obtained seismic velocities and Poisson's ratio. How-
ever, we need more detailed petrological and petrophy-
sical experimental studies of those rocks before we can
reach a conclusion.
Fig. 9-c shows a high Poisson's ratio (0.27–0.28) in
the depth range of about 6 km beneath Bam (29.11N,
58.35E) to about 9km south of there (29.02N, 58.35E)
in the profile AB. The inferred increase in Poisson's
ratio may be associated with a change from a SiO2-rich
rock to a more mafic rock. Among the mafic rocks, the
obtained values of VP (5.89–5.94 km/s) and VS (3.24–
3.33 km/s) may be related to basalt under 200 MPa, the
velocities of which are 5.914 km/s for P waves and
3.217 km/s for S waves, respectively, in Table 2 of
Christensen (1996). On the other hand, we suggest
another possible cause of the increase of Poisson's ratio:
the existence of fluids in the crust. Generally, fluid
saturation leads to an increase of Poisson's ratio (Ito et
al., 1979). Fluids can alter the rheology of rocks from
brittle to ductile behavior. The chemical influence of
279
fluids decreases the strength of rock through such
mechanisms as “stress corrosion cracking” (Atkinson
and Meredith, 1987). Fluids can also weaken a rock and
enhance creep rates and slow deformation through a
range of mechanisms (Etheridge et al., 1984; Tullis et
al., 1996). These would have enhanced stress concen-
tration in the seismogenic layer, leading to mechanical
failure and thus contributing to the nucleation of the
Bam earthquake, as we discuss latter. However, we have
no exact explanation about the origin of the crustal
fluids in this region. We presented two causes, basalt
and fluids, of the high σ in the depth range of 6–9km,
but have no definitive suggestions to make about them.
Other forms of detailed prospecting, such as electro-
magnetic prospecting, are expected, especially for
researching fluids in the deep layers under the Bam area.
Secondly, we compare the distribution of aftershocks
shown in Fig. 2B, which were located by the 3-D
velocity model, with that in Fig. 2A, which were
obtained by the 1-D model. In both distributions, the
trends are in accord with the strike and dip angles of the
focal mechanism (strike 175°, dip 85° and slip 153°) of
the main shock (Yamanaka, 2003). In addition, both
epicenter distributions extend for about 20 km in the
strike direction. However, the main linear distribution of
the 3-D model in Fig. 2B shows a shift of about 1 km to
the west in comparison with that of 1-D in Fig. 2A. This
suggests that the source fault of the main shock is about
4.5 km on average to the west of the geological Bam
fault. Fig. 10 shows the same seismic cross-section, EF,
as in Fig. 9, in contrast with the location of the Bam fault
on the ground surface (inverted arrow). We also show
the location of minor surface ruptures with en-echelon
patterns in the desert presented in Fig. 5b of Fielding et
al. (2005). The location of surface displacement was
nearly the same one modeled from satellite data (e.g.,
Talebian et al., 2004; Binet and Bollinger, 2005;
Fielding et al., 2005). In Fig. 10, the pattern of
aftershocks deeper than 5km is complex. But the main
linear cluster of aftershocks shallower than 5 km clearly
faces just upward from the surface ruptures and nearly
touches them, coming within 1 km. Of course we have to
know that the average location errors of those
hypocenters that are shallower than 3 km are estimated
to be 0.10, 0.11 and 0.32km for N–S, E–W and depth,
respectively. We therefore propose a simple schematic
model of the central fault plane of the Bam earthquake in
Fig. 10. As a matter of fact, the deeper part of the fault
plane is thought to be more complex. If we assume the
existence of a small second source fault (Funning et al.
(2005)) connecting to the Bam fault escarpment, we
could show that by the thick broken line labeled “2” in
280 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283

nearly corresponds to the thick layer with high VS and

Fig. 10. Interpretative cross-section EF in Fig. 9 showing the areas of
low Poisson's ratio (Lσ: 0.20–0.24) and high Poisson's ratio (Hσ:
0.27–0.28) by thin broken lines and the distribution of aftershocks
within a 2km width along the profile (black crosses). A schematic
simple model of the central fault plane of the Bam earthquake is shown
by a thick solid line marked with the number 1. A possible branching
segment of the fault plane is also shown by a broken line marked with
the number 2. The locations of minor surface ruptures (Fielding et al.,
2005) and the Bam fault on the ground are indicated by inverted
arrows marked with SR and BF, respectively. The locations of cross-
sections AB (shown in Fig. 9) is also indicated.
low σ, as shown in Fig. 9. On the condition of the same
density, the high VS means higher rigidity in this layer in
comparison with the surroundings. In addition, referring
to the teleseismic analyses of Yamanaka (2003) and
Yagi (2003), we suggest that the start of the higher slip is
near the bottom of the asperity. This means that the
rupture of the Bam earthquake started in or near the
deeper layer of high σ, even though we cannot show its
exact point or the precise hypocenter of the main shock
in Fig. 11. This allows us to assume that the nucleation
of the Bam earthquake was created in this deeper layer
filled with fluids. We surmise that the rupture of the
main shock started in or near the high σ layer of 6–9km
in depth and then propagated with a large slip mainly in
the rigid rocks at the depth range of 2–6 km. This
rupture with a large slip must have generated the very
strong motions on the surface and cause intense damage
in and around Bam. By using the acceleration data
observed at the Bam station and other stations (BHRC),
Miyake et al. (2004) suggested that the extremely strong
motions were localized and proposed the shallow
asperities existed on a fresh fault rather than the Bam
fault. We cannot judge between “fresh” and “not fresh”.
But our shallow asperity model in the rigid rocks can be

Fig. 10. On the other hand, we suggest that the northern

part of the fault under Bam, including Arg-e-Bam, is not
a single plane but branching planes (Nakamura et al.,
2005), because the whole pattern of aftershocks in the
cross-section CD in Fig. 9 is very complex.
Fig. 11 shows the same seismic cross-section AB as
in Fig. 9, including the areas of low and high σ. Most
aftershocks are distributed between 0 and 14 km in depth
and became shallower than that in Fig. 2A. The seismic
gap in the central part of the cross-section can be
distinguished at the depth range of 2–7 km, as shown by
the dotted circle. This may correspond to the higher slip
region (asperity) of 80cm to 1m proposed by Yamanaka
(2003) as a result of teleseismic analysis. In Fig. 11 we
also show the area with a slip larger than 2 m of the main
fault by the satellite data analysis of Funning et al.
(2005). This figure suggests that our seismic gap area
presents not a perfect but rather a good coincidence with
the large slip area of Funning et al. (2005). We can say
that the asperity of the Bam earthquake was very Fig. 11. Interpretative cross-section AB in Fig. 9 showing the areas of
shallow, nearly in the depth range of 2–7km. This low Poisson's ratio (Lσ: 0.20–0.24) and high Poisson's ratio (Hσ:
shallow asperity must be one of the reasons why the 0.27–0.28) by thin broken lines. The dotted circle shows the seismic
gap in the central part of the cross-section. The area with a slip larger
damage was unexpectedly large given the earthquake's than 2m of the main shock (Funning et al., 2005) is shown by the thick
magnitude. We also suggest that the asperity inferred broken line. The locations of cross-sections AB and CD (shown in Fig.
from the seismic gap in the depth range of 2 to 7km 9) are indicated by inverted arrows.
 H. Sadeghi et al. / Tectonophysics 417 (2006) 269–283
supported by the localized nature of the extremely
strong motions.
6. Conclusions
Three-dimensional VP, VS and Poisson's ratio in the
epicenter area of the 2003 Bam earthquake have been
determined by using a large number of high-quality
arrival times from the aftershocks. A precise aftershock
distribution, relocated by using the 3-D structure, clearly
delineates the fault plane about 4.5km west of the
known Bam fault. The aftershock distribution in the
along-strike cross-section illuminates a rectangular fault
area of about 20 km in horizontal length and 14 km in
deep width from near the earth's surface. The fault plane
dips westward steeply and strikes nearly north–south.
The main shallow cluster of aftershocks south of Bam
city is distributed just under the small ruptures found on
the ground surface. The 3-D structures of the seismo-
genic region are well resolved to a depth of 14 km. A
thick layer of high VS and low σ anomalies (0.20–0.24)
is imaged at about 2–6 km depth. Low σ may suggest
that the rocks have high SiO2 content. A high σ (0.27–
0.28) zone is clearly imaged in the depth range from
about 6km beneath Bam (29.11N, 58.35E) to about
9 km south of the city (about 29.02N, 58.35E). This zone
may suggest a change from SiO2-rich rock to a more
mafic rock, or it may suggest the existence of fluids. The
main seismic gap of aftershock distribution at the depth
range of 2 to 7km appeared in nearly good coincidence
with the large slip zone in the shallow thick layer of high
VS and low σ. This high VS and low σ may appear to
indicate high rigidity and brittleness in comparison with
the surroundings. We therefore conclude that the large
slip propagating mainly in the shallow rigid layer in and
south of Bam is one of the main reasons why the Bam
area suffered heavy damage.
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge Dr. T. Matsushima, Dr.
T. Ito, Dr. S.K. Hosseini, A.J. Gandomi, and M. Maleki
for their help with fieldwork and data analysis as well
as for our constructive discussions with them. We thank
Professor Dr. Dapeng Zhao for the tomography code
and Professor Dr. Tamao Sato for the one-dimensional
velocity inversion code. Some figures in this paper
were made using Generic Mapping Tools (GMT)
software written by Wessel and Smith (1998). The
manuscript was greatly improved by comments and
suggestions of Professor Mike Sandiford and two
anonymous reviewers.
281
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